The San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds hits his 761st career home run, a solo effort, off Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Chris Capuano in the fourth inning Aug. 24, 2007 in San Francisco.The Associated Press

The Hall of Fame ballot released this week by the Baseball Writers Association of America had 37 names on it, and there is sure to be much debate about whether Barry Bonds deserves votes. But what's not debatable is that Bonds has the potential to make the most powerful statement ever about his era of the game.

Or he might just be a morbidly fascinating induction sideshow.

Either way, I want to hear what he has to say.

I don't think we're ever going to agree on whether Bonds deserves to be included among the greatest ballplayers in history. Some argue that the all-time leader in home runs, like the all-time leader in hits (Pete Rose), is a disgraced fraud. Others say Bonds should be included in baseball's greatest museum simply because ignoring an entire era of baseball is a disservice to history. Others still say Bonds hit more home runs than anyone, and the hall is merit-based, so what's the argument?

But it's Bonds that I wish to hear speak. Because for two decades he played the game better than anyone, and if he circumvented MLB rules or just circled the bases as he danced between them, it's Bonds who has the power to make the only statement that matters on baseball's performance-enhancing era. If Bonds does what I suspect he might with his big moment, baseball itself might get to move on.

Bonds holds baseball's all-time single-season record for home runs (73) and is the career home-run record holder (762). But he was also indicted on perjury charges and convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to the grand jury during the government's investigation of BALCO. Bonds told the grand jury he never knowingly took any illegal steroids. And he's been cantankerous and obtuse in the wake of that.

Bonds responded to cries for an asterisk beside his home-run records by telling reporters: "All you guys lied. All of you all, in a story of whatever, lied. Should you have asterisks behind your name? All of you lied, all of you have said something wrong, all of you have dirt. All of you. When your closet comes clean, then come clean someone else's. But clean yours first."

With his legal issues seemingly behind him, with a slap on the wrist for his obstruction charge, I'm curious whether a wiser, older Bonds might finally speak earnestly about what happened. He lied. He's admitted as much. And Bonds is right, everyone has done it. But I wonder, in his moment of truth, if Bonds might finally come clean, or simply explain what he thinks happened to baseball in the 1990s.

If voted in on the first ballot, Bonds would have his coveted Hall of Fame bust. Nobody could take that away. He'd have no threat of new charges, due to double jeopardy. Most of all, he'd have the microphone and his final chance to end the deception and ugliness, and let baseball exhale.

I don't expect Bonds to speak for Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens. But there isn't a more symbolic representative of the steroid era of baseball than the guy who hit more long balls than anyone. The stories of Bonds' head size growing and his feet growing and his muscles growing, due apparently to HGH use, are all well circulated and speculated about, but what I'm most interested in is the growth Bonds has had since he retired from baseball in 2007.

Would he take the podium and throw grenades? Would he absolve himself as a man who, like so many others of his era, greedily chased a legacy? Would he take others down with him? Would he apologize and shoulder the blame himself? Would he turn, as I saw Bonds do in the clubhouse, into a rambling, nonsensical fool who plainly doesn't grasp it?

No two games are alike, we're told. No two snowflakes, either. And no two Bonds pressers ever felt the same when I covered the guy in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he was hitting home runs at a blistering pace. I remember being in the Giants clubhouse after one game and approaching Bonds, who had hired a media firm to help him restore his image. I was instructed by a media person standing by Bonds to present a list of written questions. They would then be examined and it would be determined which ones Bonds might answer.

I refused the protocol. Again, he did this trying to restore his image. Peculiar guy, Bonds.

I also remember seeing Bonds shirtless, with his back to me. I was covering the San Francisco 49ers as well. And I shook my head, marveling at how Bonds and ripped 49ers linebacker Lee Woodall had ridiculously similar physiques. There is no hiding suspicion, and there was reasonable doubt all around Bonds during an era which baseball is now ashamed happened.

Bonds belongs in the Hall of Fame statistically. He belongs historically. He doesn't belong ethically. And that's the challenge for those holding votes. But it's his words that I'm most interested in now, ironically, because I didn't care to hear the man speak much when he was playing.

We can easily make sense of a game that got drunk with home runs trying to win our attention. We can castigate those who participated. We can hold silly congressional hearings about baseball, even as our country faces a financial crisis and is at war. But ultimately there is nothing that might heal baseball more than Bonds could with a few words. Even if we don't like hearing about it, there was always truth in the lie.